


Stiles Can Keep a Secret

by inu_spike



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dialogue Heavy, Freeform, M/M, Mentioned Danny Mahealani, Mentioned Gerard Argent, Mentioned Jackson Whittemore, Mentioned Jennifer Blake, Mentioned Lydia Martin, Non-Graphic Violence, Pre-Slash, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-02 01:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17878298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inu_spike/pseuds/inu_spike
Summary: As a five-year-old, Stiles was loud, curious, tactless, and loud. Emphasis on the loud. In hindsight, Stiles is somewhat devastatingly embarrassed by just how surprised he was when the witch cursed him.OrStiles is cursed by a witch to keep secrets, even from the ones he loves most.





	Stiles Can Keep a Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Well, hello there. Right. Full disclosure, this is my first story since... May 2014... omg. Also, this is my first work in this fandom (What? Too little, too late? Psh, I think not). Please, be kind.

As a five-year-old, Stiles was loud, curious, tactless, and loud. Emphasis on the loud. His mouth had gotten him in trouble with his mom, his dad, his super mean grandpa that he only saw the once, and his grandma, who had a really strong accent (to be fair to him, _Rush Hour_ was still an incredibly popular movie on TBS when he told her that he couldn’t understand the words that was comin’ outta her mouth). Yeah, the mouth was a problem.

In hindsight, Stiles is somewhat devastatingly embarrassed by just how surprised he was when the witch cursed him.

All baby-him knew was that a little girl in his kindergarten class had whispered about her secret crush and that Stiles had walked across the playground, right up to the boy she liked, and told him. Loudly. While pointing for clarification. 

The little girl had immediately burst into tears as their classmates jeered at her, and Stiles suddenly found himself standing in the shadow of one of the parent volunteers. She was tall, towering over his miniscule height, wearing a pale blue polo shirt and tight khaki pants, with her light brown hair in a messy bun on top of her head. She looked just like all the other tired moms who were roped in to volunteering for playground duty, but he didn’t recognize her at all. She had her hands perched on her hips and a disappointed frown on her face. 

“I think we need to have a little talk about keeping secrets to ourselves.”

She grabbed him by his thin wrist; her fingers almost burning hot as they dug into his delicate, pale flesh. He cried out in protest and tried to tug away - her grip was stronger than the pair of his dad’s handcuffs that he may or may not have been playing with after being specifically told that they were not to be played with - but it was as if none of the other volunteers could hear or see him. 

The woman dragged him back inside the school building and into the first empty kindergarten classroom she could find. The door slammed shut behind them as soon as they crossed the threshold, even though Stiles knew the doors weren’t supposed to do that (he had heard some of the teachers talking about how awful it was that the doors shut so slowly, and how that would make things so much harder in an emergency). She dropped him onto a small chair, and he found that he couldn’t get back up. He whimpered pitifully and tried not to cry – his mommy had told him what a big boy he was just yesterday, and he wasn’t going to let her down now by being a crybaby. 

“Let’s see, let’s see,” he heard her murmur as she moved across the room to one of the supply cabinets. She opened the doors and rummaged around for a moment, all the while Stiles struggled to leave his seat, going so far as to actually throw himself from side to side. It made no difference, though; he was completely stuck. 

“Ah ha! Here we go!” She reemerged from the cabinet, a small jar of loose glitter clenched in her hand. Stiles spared a thought away from his escape attempt to contemplate the container: Like, why did the teachers even bother keeping that type of glitter in the classroom? It’s not like they ever willingly gave the kids loose glitter to work with. Who would give twenty-something five-year-olds a straight up jar of plastic death to throw around the room all nilly willy? 

The woman let out a thoughtful hum that brought his attention back to her. She tossed the glitter container from one hand to the other, deep frown lines appearing between her furrowed brows until her entire face transformed into a wickedly, viscous smirk.

The temperature in the room dropped drastically as she stepped in front of him. The sunlight that had been streaming through the windows suddenly dimmed, as if the sun was blocked by thick storm clouds. Stiles opened his mouth to scream, but found that no sound would come out. The tears he had been so proudly holding back broke free from his eyes to stream down his cheeks. 

Her smirked widened as she looked down at him, the wisps of hair that had escaped her bun moving with an unfelt wind. When she spoke, her voice echoed in his head like someone screaming from the bottom of a deep cavern:

 _“A lesson must be taught,_  
_For you shared something you ought not._  
_Secrets are as secrets should be,_  
_And from foul lips, never be set free._  
_So, now this spell is cast for you,_  
_To make you pay what is due._  
_From now until your end of days,_  
_You shall keep all secrets. Always.”_

The rhyme finished with a thundering rumble that shook the room, then she opened the lid of the glitter and threw it at him in an ominous arch of silver plastic.

Stiles slammed his eyes shut and sucked in a quick breath, thinking that if he breathed in the tiny particles he might be transformed into a frog or toad. His pulsed raced in his ears as he held his breath for as long as he could, but, when he gasped for air after just a moment, he was still himself. Just, covered in itchy silver glitter. 

He heard a short cackle from the other side of the room and whipped his head around to the doorway. There the woman stood, hair and face as plain and ordinary as when she had grabbed him from the playground.

“Now, Stiles,” she practically crooned, sending an uncomfortable shiver down his spine, causing goosebumps to rise on his arms and the short hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. 

“Remember,” her voice sticky sweet as she opened the door, “ **This is our little secret**.”

The door hung slightly ajar as she flounced out of the room; he could hear that same cackle echoing down the hallway. He tore himself from his seat, taking no time to celebrate his sudden mobility, before stumbling over his own numb feet as he raced for the door. He banged his elbow on the doorjamb, nearly twisted his ankle sliding on the linoleum in the hall, and barely missed knocking his head into the handle of the door that led back out to the playground. 

The bright sun of the day was blinding to his young eyes, and he scrubbed at them with the back of his glitter spotted arm, smearing the bits of plastic over his still wet cheeks. He did his best to look around for the woman. He didn’t see her. He didn’t see her anywhere. _Where was she?!_

“Stiles?” He stumbled again, turning towards the voice of his teacher. “What happened, sweetie?”

He knew her, knew her big blue eyes, her wire frame glasses, and her straw blonde hair. He let out a sigh of relief. He knew her, he could trust her; she wouldn’t be weird and scary and threaten him in a dark room.

He opened his mouth to tell her about the strange woman and the glitter, but all that would come out was a strangled gurgle. He took a breath to try again, but the same thing happened. His heart started to race again, he could feel sweat starting to gather on his temples and forehead. He tried, over and over, to get the words out, but nothing would come. 

“Stiles, Stiles!” She squatted down to get to his height, gentle hands coming up to delicately cup his shoulders, nothing like the awful grip the mysterious woman had held him with. “It’s okay, sweetie. I promise I won’t be mad. Just tell me what happened?”

With tears beginning to fill his eyes and a hitch in his breath that would belay his first panic attack, Stiles whispered, “It’s a secret.”

~!~

After several years, and many, many experiments, ten-year-old Stiles was able to come up with a list of rules and caveats for his curse:

1\. He could think of the secrets. However, he couldn’t say them out loud (even to himself) or write them down. He didn’t know how the curse knew what he was writing or maybe it was all about intent. All Stiles knew was that if he tried to write down or pass a written secret, his hand and arm would cramp up so bad, he couldn’t move his fingers for almost twenty minutes. It had made for some pretty awkward attempted note passing… until people figured out that the notes confessing their love love always died a sweaty death in his clenched hand and they just stopped giving them to him. At the very least, he never got in trouble with the teachers—well, for that. 

2\. He could lie. That one was easy. He could lie like a sleeping dude under the comfiest blanket in all of existence. But, and it was a big _but_ , his dad was the only one who always seemed to know when he was lying, and Stiles would have to live through the “I’m disappointed in you and in the choices you’re making” face (Stiles felt it probably had something to do with how naturally fidgety he was. His wiggling always gave him away). It wasn’t the greatest face, and it always made him feel like he might, maybe, suddenly burst into sad, sad tears. He tried to avoid this rule. It never worked. 

3\. He could tell the truth. This one required a lot of finessing. If he had a secret to keep, he could tell the truth around it, but he couldn’t actually speak the secret. Every time he did, he’d end up having unbearable chest pain (which the doctors diagnosed it as acid reflux… even though there was nothing to support that… and he was five…), or, if he kept pushing, he would stop being able to breathe entirely (which the doctors diagnosed as an anxiety and panic disorder…yeah, no, that actually made sense). So, the truth. Like how when his dad confronted him about some papers in his office, Stiles said he just so happened (truth) to find (stretch of the truth) a particular piece of paper with the names of Jackson Whittemore’s parents (truth, with the caveat that he hadn’t said ‘birth’ or ‘real’), but that he understood it was a secret (truth) and he would _never_ tell (curse). BAM, truth without the heart or panic attack. He was pretty good at spinning just about anything and everything in his favor now. Though, his dad still gave him the squinty eyes about it. 

4\. He could tell, as long as someone else told first. The second a secret wasn’t a secret anymore, he was free to talk about it as much as he wanted to. See, again, the Whittemores. When Jackson’s uppity, better-than-all, lawyer father let slip that his son was adopted during one of those parent teacher things, Stiles’ chest released a pressure he hadn’t even known was there. The next time Jackson bullied Stiles, just after his mom had passed, Stiles was able to sling some of the cruelest, most vitriol condemnations known to kid kind. He’s pretty sure there are still kids that avoid him because of how bad he’d made Jackson cry that day. The subsequent three days the other boy had stayed home from school probably didn’t help. Stiles _knows_ Danny still gives him the hairy eyeball about it. 

5\. He couldn’t tell the truth. This one got more complicated as he got older. Similar to his truth rule, his un-truth rule dictated that he couldn’t tell the truth if someone specifically asked him not to tell (30%), if it was a secret-secret that his snooping had uncovered (50%), or if it was his own secret that he had mentally labeled a secret even if that secret could lead to bodily harm or injury (20%, though that number had been increasing ever since he felt the first stirrings of puberty). The discovery of this rule had been awful, painful, and all around no good. So much no good. 

However, there were always exceptions to the rules. For one thing, if someone figured out the secret and called him out, he was off the hook. He could totally admit and talk about it; hell, he could sing, scream, and dance about it. The world was his oyster. Like when he was nine and fell off the roof, after his dad had specifically told him not to do it, and broke his arm. Rule #5 kicked in immediately and he hadn’t been able to say a word to his dad. The man wasn’t a deputy, and later Sheriff, for nothing, though, and it took less than a day before Stiles’ dumb ass was taken to the ER for x-rays, a cool blue cast, and the deepest frown he had ever seen on his dad’s face.

“Why didn’t you say anything, kiddo?”

“….”

“Is me being mad worth a broken arm?”

“…It was a secret.”

~!~

If hate could be bottled, fifteen-year-old Stiles was pretty sure his rage at the word “secret” could fuel the goddamn sun. The witch’s curse reared its head so often, he really thought he should sit and contemplate his life choices at length. The curse had ostracized him from every friend and potential friend he could have had, save one: Scott McCall. Instant friends since six-year-old Stiles smacked a bee (out of midair!) on its way to murder the other boy (Allergies, Asthma, and the Spring; Stiles thought it would make an excellent memoir title), Scott was the light to his darkness; the balm to his soul; the motherfucking beacon of all good things that existed in this world. There were times when their friendship was stretched and tested: The Broken Batman Incident, Shoe-pocalypse 2002, The Mysterious Case of the Missing Playboy (or How They Both Got Grounded for Boobies), among many other instances of mundane, best friend bullshit. None of it really mattered though, because Scott was still there for him, and he was always there for Scott…for the most part. 

“It’s a secret” – Dead body in the woods. When his dad caught him. When his dad asked about Scott. When he left Scott behind and couldn’t call back to him.  
“It’s a secret” – Figuring out that Scott was a werewolf before Scott did. The sheer frustration this brought on was worth at least a few mental health days home from school.  
“It’s a secret” – When Derek asked what they were doing out in the Preserve. Leather jacket wearing weirdo running around in the woods in broad daylight. What kind of creature of the night BS?  
“It’s a secret” – Figuring out who the Alpha was.  
“It’s a secret” – When Peter kidnapped him to find out where Derek was.  
“It’s a secret” – When Peter smashed his face onto the trunk of his dead nurse’s car when Stiles refused to type in Scott’s username and password. Never let it be said that Peter wasn’t a smart cookie, though, because it only took him a few tries to guess just close enough for Stiles to finally be able to spill.  
“It’s a secret” – When he grabbed Jackson from the hospital, when he turned and ran from his own father, when he snarled in Chris Argent’s face about what his sister Kate had done.  
“It’s a secret” – As he drove Jackson’s precious Porsche with prejudice through the woods to save Derek and Scott from the Argents and Peter.  
“It’s a secret” – When Scott asked “Why” as they both looked at Derek’s new red eyes. 

~!~

The second half of sophomore year wasn’t really much better, though he did get a slightly wider circle of cynical, brutal, asshole friends, so there was that.

“It’s a secret” – The kanima. Oh my god, why? There was no reason. No reason at all for something that weird and creepy to be part of his life.  
“It’s a secret” – Holding up Derek in the pool for two hours. He’d wanted to cry, just a little, when he had dragged Derek back up from his resigned place at the bottom of the pool. He would never be able to tell Derek “Why”.  
“It’s a secret” – Gerard Argent.  
“It’s a secret” – To Scott’s “What did you see?”, after another party goer had dunked Stiles’ head in the pool. It took him a few days to be able to look his dad in the eye again. It took a few weeks to stop hearing the accusations in his dreams.  
“It’s a secret” – Matt. The station. Paralysis. Derek. His dad.  
“It’s a secret” – Gerard _fucking_ Argent and that basement.  
“It’s a secret” – The tears and terror he saw on Erica and Boyd’s faces as Chris bodily removed him from that basement and dropped his ass off in front of his own house.  
“It’s a secret” – To his dad, split lip still leaking and ribs still creaking.  
“It’s a secret” – When Lydia demanded explanations. Lucky for them all, Lydia was just as terrifyingly brilliant as the madman she had brought back to life.  
“It’s a secret” – To Derek when he asked “Why” again after Jackson and Lydia had been bundled away from the warehouse. They never found Gerard. 

~!~

If he had thought junior year was going to be his year, it would have been optimistic to the point of insanity. Which, given the events that happened to his rag-tag group, was pretty accurate. 

“It’s a secret” – The alphas.  
“It’s a secret” – Erica.  
“It’s a secret” – Derek. Goddammit, Derek.  
“It’s a secret” – Scott and that flare.  
“It’s a secret” – Boyd.  
“It’s a secret” – When Cora started puking black blood in his bedroom. Bless Peter Hale, Stiles shuddered at the thought, for knowing the signs of mistletoe poisoning. Stiles thought back on just how eager Peter was to share the information and really considered bashing the werewolf’s head in and burying him under the old Hale house. Again.  
“It’s a secret” – Stupid ice bath and that creepy ass stump.  
“It’s a secret” – Jennifer or Julia or who gives a fuck. Bitch took his dad and, if it weren’t for Scott, he would never had been able to say anything.  
“It’s a secret” – When he figured out where their parents were. Or that he crashed the jeep into a goddamn tree. For serious. It wasn’t even in the middle of the road. He had to _find_ that tree to hit it. Stupid, evil magic storms.  
“It’s a secret” – Metal bat. Hell yeah. He wasn’t going to be able to tell his dad that he had broken Ms. McCall’s wooden bat on a monster Alpha’s head.  
“It’s a secret” – When new, True Alpha Scott asked where Derek was after the former alpha had made Stiles promise not to tell. When Derek had kissed him, kind of roughly, on his forehead before climbing back out of his window and into the night, the Camaro and Cora waiting to leave Beacon Hills. 

~!~

“It’s a secret.” _“Let me in.”_  
“It’s a secret.” _“Let me in.”_  
“It’s a secret.” _“Let me in.”_  
“It’s a secret.” _“Let me in.”_  
“It’s a secret.” _“Let me in.”_  
“It’s a secret.” _“Let me in.”_  
“IT’S A SECRET!” _“LET ME IN!”_  
… … … …  
_“This is in our way.”_

~!~

For all the chaos and misery the demon in his head caused, Stiles could at least look over the whole ordeal with one little speck of positivity. The nogitsune had taken personal offense to the curse and burned it out of the body he had occupied. As another point of positivity, the new body that Stiles now lived in, dragged up from the floorboards of the McCall house (and wasn’t Melissa just overjoyed at the mess that had made?) was also curse free. And it was like his mind and mouth were a dam, hell, all the dams on Earth, breaking wide open.

To everyone: “So, I got cursed by a witch when I was five for being a loudmouthed little shit and the fox hated it and now I can tell all of you _all_ the things.”

To Noah: “Mom told me to tell you that she loved you right at the end.” …“I wanna redecorate the living room. The paisley, dad. It’s time to let it go.” … “I wanna put mom’s pictures back up on the walls.” … “I have broken so many things. Oh my god, so many things.” … “I ate the last of anything you’ve ever thought I’ve eaten the last of.” … “I have several copies of several key cards that you and I both know I have no permission or clearance to have” … “There are several unmarked… resting places in the preserve that I think I should take you to when we have a weekend off.” … “I’ve been using a fake ID to get stuff for years. I don’t feel comfortable telling you about all things I’ve gotten, but some of them were bigger than a bread box.” … “I’m so glad that you’re my dad. If you start crying, I’m gonna blubber snot all over the place and we’ll both be a mess.”

To Scott: “You’re a werewolf! Oh my god, I’ve been waiting _two years_ to yell that at you.” … “My closet is full of birthday gifts I haven’t been able to give you because they were all special and secret.” … “Gerard kicked my ass in his basement while you were trying to lie to Derek about _plans_.” … “I used wolfsbane in my locker so that you wouldn’t be able to sniff out your birthday gift last year… and then I couldn’t give it to you anyway.” … “I hated that tattoo, dude. I still don’t like it. I get it, bro, I get it. I just don’t like it.” … “You remember Batman? Yeah, Superman was my revenge. Sorry not sorry.” … “I’ve always secretly admired how strong you are. Even when you were that scrawny kid with the asthma and the slightly crooked jaw… Dude, the jaw’s crooked, buddy. Still, you’ve stolen my heart, Scott McCall!” 

To Lydia: “Not to sound like a total asshole, but, you know, I was never actually in love with you… Of course you know. I just needed something to obsess over, something to make my own. Have a legit secret that everyone knew about…Would you stop Han Soloing me?!”

To Derek: “You make the worst choices. Like, the worst, dude.” … “I miss the Camero. The dad car is good, yeah, but, dude. Dad car.” … “Your hair makes me so mad sometimes. What do you even put in it? How does it do that thing with the soft but firm?” … “I love the color of your eyes, all the time. Red, blue, fucking kaleidoscope.” … “I have cherished every moment we have bantered and snarked at each other. Like, literally cherished, dude. There may or may not be some coded journal entries.” … “I look forward to pack nights. So much. But, you know, not just for the movie and whatever. It’s the only time I get to squish next to you without some kind of life-or-death excuse. You probably need to get more furniture, though. What with the pack of wolves, and a banshee, and a kitsune, and, you know, Peter. For reals. One more meeting next to Uncle Bad Touch and I’m puttin’ him back in the ground.” … “You’re worth loving. No, no, don’t you use your angry-brows at me! You deserve to be taken care of, and to have someone who wants to do it just because you’re you. No motives, no bullshit. Just, you deserve the whole damn world, Derek. And I’m sorry I wasn’t able to tell you that before.” … “I couldn’t share any of my thoughts or feelings or anything unless someone really looked and made a guess. I’ve had to hold myself back for so long that I’m not sure I’m capable of feeling the right way. I don’t know if I can be what I want to be for you.” … “Because I care about you, that’s ‘why’. I’ll hold your fat ass up in a pool for seventy years if it helps you believe me.” … “Your ass isn’t fat. It’s amazing. I wanna bounce quarters off of it.” … “I’m gonna marry you and hold your hand and kiss you and look into your eyes while your grandpa music plays in the background. I’m gonna be _disgustingly_ in love with you for the rest of our lives.”

To himself: “The nogitsune… he wasn’t acting alone. All those plans? The station, Barrow, the power plant, Coach, the hospital? Those were all me. Things I knew would spread everyone too thin and incapacitate the town. I don’t know. Just, sometimes, it felt like the fox was something I made up, you know? Just an excuse for my fucked up brain. Like, he wasn’t some outside monster.” … “I’m not a nice person, and that’s okay.” … “I love him. I love him so fucking much. I’ll ruin him.” … “I am better. I will be better.” … “The nogitsune was real and he wasn’t me.”… “I f-f-f”… “I forgive.” … “I forgive myself.” … “I’ll be the best damn man any wedding has ever seen! And I will strangle Isaac with his own goddamn scarf if he thinks he can jump ahead of me in line for shrimp at the reception. Three years in France getting to ‘know himself’ my ass.” … “We’re going to get married and have eight kids and six dogs and Scott’s gonna pay me back for that best man speech and I’m so damn happy I could shout it out our bedroom window. But, I won’t. Not yet. Because this? This is ours.”


End file.
